It's an expression. Liquid water has mass and takes up space. It's material. It exists in a materialistic universe where the only things that exist are matter an energy.
On the other hand, there's nothing physical about "laws." They lose their law-like properties and become conventions of thought rather than regulators of truth and rationality in a world where only matter and energy exist.
> Rationality requires laws of logic--which do not exist in a humanistic, materialistic world.
And how do you suppose that? Materialism doesn't deny the existence of logic; you seem to not really know what materialism is.
> Tell me, can you stub your toe on the law of non-contradiction? No? How does it exist then?
Yea, you don't know what materialism is. I can't stub my toe on hacker news either, nor any website, but they clearly exist and they exist in way perfectly compatible with materialism as does your mind and the thing we call logic. They still all reduce down to patterns of matter in your brain or patterns of electrons in computer chips, it is all physical at the base level. To a materialist, mind is simply what the brain does, it's your operating system just as Windows is what your computer is probably doing. Perfectly compatible with materialism.
Science and logic go hand in hand and scientists are virtually all materialists because so far as anyone can demonstrate with evidence, materialism is the nature of reality.
> If Charlie holds to different laws of logic than Bill...whose brain is right?
If they're using different forms of logic, then they're both right according to the form they're using, but they can't be compared to each other unless they're using the same kind of logic.
> Your view is that laws are just conventions of thought. Those aren't laws, then.
It's not my view, it's simply the way it is. Different rules of logic exist [1]; such systems are axiomatic and obey their own rules. There is no one "correct" system of logic, there are many competing systems. The term law is meaningless, logic isn't a law in the sense you seem to think, it is merely a system of formalized thinking according to rules.
> I again assert: rationality is impossible without laws of logic. With conventions of logic, you just have strong opinions.
Logic is merely a branch of philosophy concerned with valid reasoning. Reasoning is not in opposition to materialism. Materialists do not argue that thoughts don't exist and logic is merely a formal method of thinking. You're objecting to materialism when it's quite clear you don't understand what it is.
> If they're using different forms of logic, then they're both right according to the form they're using,
Absurd. Knowledge is impossible if both are right. You're bad at this.
> but they can't be compared to each other unless they're using the same kind of logic.
Says who? Your conventions? What if my "conventions" of logic say the can be compared if they're different systems of logic? You're imposing a "law" of "you can't compare when I say so."
I'm telling you that you can't know anything or say something is rational or irrational with conventions of logic.
I'm also pointing out your treating laws of logic like laws (yay! I commend you for treating them like laws), but you are coming from a worldview that doesn't allow for laws (boo! inconsistency!).
This is where materialists bow out because they don't want to dig too deeply into their presuppositions.
> I'm telling you that you can't know anything or say something is rational or irrational with conventions of logic.
Stawman, that point is not in dispute.
> but you are coming from a worldview that doesn't allow for laws (boo! inconsistency!).
No I'm not. Your notion that materialism doesn't allow logic is simply wrong. You don't know what materialism is and I'm tired of repeating myself on that point why you continue to skirt the issue and ignore that.
> This is where materialists bow out because they don't want to dig too deeply into their presuppositions.
No, they bow out because you're clearly irrational and unable to engage in meaningful conversation because you don't address points being made to you. You just ignore them and keep saying the same non-sense that's being challenged.
lulz
Rationality requires laws of logic--which do not exist in a humanistic, materialistic world.
Tell me, can you stub your toe on the law of non-contradiction? No? How does it exist then?